Guardians pitcher Gavin Williams is having a nice close to 2025 and a good season overall, with a 3.26 ERA. But if any pitcher ever needed to buy his fielders dinner (or something nicer) for their work this year, he’s the guy.

Williams has a 4.54 FIP, the product of 4.6 walks per 9 and 1.3 home runs per 9. Normally we would ascribe “luck” (in whatever form you might think) as the reason for Williams’ surface-level success. But his 3.26 ERA is a true team effort.

Cleveland’s defense has 16 Runs Saved on the batted balls against Williams, the most of any pitcher in the majors. 

Additionally, the defense behind him has been aesthetically pleasing. SIS tracks Good Fielding Plays, which includes highlight-reel plays and things like cutting off a ball in the gap to hold a batter to a single or deking a baserunner.

The Guardians have 33 Good Fielding Plays when Williams pitches. That’s the most by any team for a pitcher this season. They have 13 Defensive Misplays & Errors when he pitches (Misplays are an additional thing we track- things that produce a negative consequence for the defense but aren’t errors, like slipping and falling or overthrowing a cutoff man). 

By comparison, the pitcher with the second-best defensive support, Jacob DeGrom, has gotten 15 Runs Saved on his batted balls, which is roughly the same number as Williams. The Rangers have made 11 Good Fielding Plays and 9 Defensive Misplays & Errors. 

Here’s a list of the pitchers with the most defensive support this season, along with the Good Play and Misplay & Error totals for their teams.

Let’s give you a sense of what we’re talking about with Williams. To do that, we can go back just one start, when he pitched seven innings of one-run ball against the Athletics. It could have been two runs but not for this extraordinary catch by Steven Kwan. I’m not one to often hand out superlatives, but by our calculations this is ‘Catch of the Year’ territory, a play with an 8% out probability.

The big run savers for Williams have been outfielder Daniel Schneemann and shortstop Gabriel Arias. We don’t express Defensive Runs Saved to a decimal point but for the purposes of this article, we’ll note that each has about 2.5 Runs Saved on the balls hit against him.

Here’s a diving catch by Schneemann on a ball with a 11% out probability.

And here’s a ‘nifty play’ by Arias ranging well to his left to get an out on a ball with a 39% out probability.

Of the 16 Runs Saved for Williams, roughly 9 come from the skill of Guardians defenders (range for infielders and outfielders and throwing for infielders). Another 7 runs come from Cleveland’s defensive positioning, tied for the third-most by any team for a pitcher (the Rays have 9 runs of positioning for Shane Baz and the Dodgers have 8 behind Clayton Kershaw).

Here’s a good example of the value of positioning. This ball, hit by Jeff McNeil of the Mets, is an out 87% of the time given where second baseman Brayan Rocchio is playing. 

But if we didn’t know Rocchio’s defensive positioning, ground balls hit to that spot at that speed are an out only 20% of the time. The Guardians get a team credit for improving the out probability from 20% to 87%. Williams took a no-hit bid into the ninth inning of that game. Though C.J. Kayfus made a diving catch in the seventh inning, the defense on that McNeil at-bat was the most important in terms of denying a hit in the first eight innings of that game.

One more example of good positioning: Kayfus makes a nice reaching catch on a fly ball hit towards the right field line here, a ball on which his positioning improved the out probability from 19% to 82%.

I’ll note that we’re only looking at batted balls here but if we looked at other things, Williams would probably benefit too. Basestealers are 6-for-12 against him this season and Williams has helped his own cause with 3 pickoffs. 

Williams has 3 Defensive Runs Saved this season, all from limiting stolen bases. He deserves some of the defensive credit too, though it’s his teammates who have been true Guardians of the baseball galaxy when it comes to watching out for him this season.